Isabelle
by ScarlettAlexandra
Summary: The story about the very original character of Beau, since she did not receive a book of her own.
1. Chapter 1

**Beau is perhaps one of my favorite characters with the least amount of detail in her back story. So I shall try to write one hopefully with you readers input. I do not own the Tales of Rowan Hood. Please let me know what you think!  
><strong>

There was perhaps one spot in the vast nature that Sherwood Forest was that Beau enjoyed coming alone to. A small spring not far from Robin Hood's oak lined with the much smaller cherry trees that stuck out like sore thumbs when their flowers were in bloom. The color of the cherry blossoms in the spring was far more intense than the blossoms that bloomed on the rowan trees in the hollow. She liked their intensity and their sweet sent. Often Beau would sit under a tree and do something silly like make a flower crown to pass the time.

Pink was maybe one of her favorite colors and she wished she could wear it but to wear the color as an outlaw would be a death sentence especially when the forest boughs had not yet thickened after winter.

Anything was better than black truthfully. She despised the color and what the color had represented to her for a very long time. Old memories began returning to her mind and before they could fully resurface Beau stood and began the trudge to the hollowed out oak that was Robin Hood and his Merry Men's favorite camp. She hoped that someone was actually there today to take her mind away and give her something else to do.

She walked over the hill that served as a barrier around the outside of the glade and did the small whistle of a wagtail to signify any outlaws that she was not an intruder before walking into the camp. A few outlaws lay around a fire closest to the great oak in the center of camp. A few more were on guard around the edges and at the top of the hill. Beau knew about only a handful of them by name. Only seeing one that looked familiar, Much, she walked up to him as he stirred something in a large pot at a separate fire.

"You know you could always spike it with something." She said in her fake accent. Much smiled up at her and shook his head. "Would make for a very interesting evening." She added. Seeing the outlaws act like drunk fools was always a pleasure, but to have them act foolish without even knowing why would be hilarious.

"Can't do it while it is still cooking Beau." Much said, "Besides Robin would notice because he hardly eats." He pointed out and sat the crude wood spoon aside.

Often Beau and the others would make their way to Robin's camp and dine with the outlaws, other times they chose to remain at the rowan hollow amongst the crags that served as their home.

Beau wondered where her friends were for a moment. Most the time they had all gotten up and left before she rose, sometimes Ettarde, the former princess, would still be at the hollow. Beau sighed and looked once more around the camp a few more outlaws had gathered in the clearing chatting amongst themselves or practicing swordplay. "How many now?" She asked Much.

"How many what?" He replied looking around.

"Men are there in the band?" Beau said looking back to him. Much was shorter than most men with long strait blonde hair that was more sandy than golden. He had a rounder face but a very kind smile.

"Close to maybe eighty if everyone is here at the same time. Why ya ask?"

"Purqoui pas?" she said, "why not?"

Much was about to reply when they heard voices coming into camp. Both heads turned to see and watched as Robin Hood, Little John his right hand man, Will, Allen and a few others she didn't know the names of walked into camp. Robin, usually a cheery man, had a smug look on his face. His eyes were clouded gray instead of their usual twinkling blue, his lips tight and jaw set.

"You might wanna head back to Rowan and the others lass." Much said to her.

"What happened?" Beau asked him. Though Much was short Beau was still shorter than him and had to look up slightly.

He shook his head and walked over to Robin and the others. Beau sighed and pondered staying a moment but decided better of it and made her way out of the camp.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2. Own nothing**

Beau heard the voices of her friends as she walked closer to the crags. Standing around at the bottom of the steep, rocky hill that was the entrance to the camp was Lionel, Rowan, and Etty. Lionel and Rowan were both practicing archery and Etty sat on a rock nearby chatting with them. Rowan noticed Beau's arrival first and smiled her direction. The other two greeted her with hellos.

_Good_, Beau thought, Rowan had been in a better mood since they returned from Celandine's Wood a mere few months back. Perhaps she was finally at peace with her mother's death. Beau sat next to Etty on one of the lower rocks and listened to Lionel and Rowan banter.

"So since your legs are healed, does that mean I don't have to hunt anymore?" Lionel asked looking down at Rowan.

She looked up at him and then at the target, a tree with a little patch of bark stripped by one of their hunting knives. "Well, how on earth do you think I shall carry a dear by myself?" She asked a grin playing on her lips, "You don't have to kill it but you still have to carry it."

Lionel groaned and aimed his bow at the marker taking the shot. The arrow struck the target but was not centered, "We could make a contest out of it."

"Rowan is a better shot than you Lionel." Etty stated than turned to Beau, "Where have you been all morning?"

"Oh!" Beau said catching the others attention. "I went to see your father and mess with him but he was not there." She directed to Rowan, "So I talk to Much for a bit. Well Robin comes back oui, and he does not look very happy about something. I would've stayed and found out but Much said I needed to go. So I came here." Beau explained talking with her hands. Looking between their faces Rowan peered at her, eyebrows furrowed together. Lionel and Etty only stared.

"Should we go?" Etty asked turning to Rowan who shook her head.

"If it's something a danger to us we will get word by tonight. If not I am sure Robin will tell us eventually." Rowan said, "Rook should be back soon with the fish, I'll go start a fire." Rowan began climbing up the hill. Lionel slung his bow over his back and fallowed her, then Etty, and then Beau herself. Beau smiled a bit when Rowan had slipped on one of the rocks and Lionel steadied her with his hand to her back.

She was sure that the two had unspoken affection for each other. _Lionel cares for her a lot, _Beau thought. Once in the hollow Beau pointed out to Rowan that a piece of her boot had worn off the bottom and picked up the little scrap of leather.

"Toads," Rowan muttered looking at the bottom of her foot, "I suppose I need new ones."

"Perhaps if you didn't go running every morning you would not wear through the bottoms as quickly." Lionel said smiling.

Rowan smiled and rolled her eyes at him, "If you have disdain for me running alone than run with me." She proclaimed and Lionel crinkled his nose.

Beau saw a movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see Rook, arms full of fish, coming down the hill to them. He sat the fish down by the fire and kneeled down to start skinning them.

"Need any help?" Beau asked him. Rook shrugged but handed her a knife.

Quietly the two began skinning and gutting the fish. Beau liked Rook and respected him the most. He was quiet and didn't banter as much as the others and herself. She liked that he spoke his mind without any hesitation and most of the time what he said was the truth. She had seen Rook change and grow into the person he is now. Once a Wild Boy of Sherwood, but now a young man with his hair cut shorter and wore brown leggings and a soft green tunic that he had Beau dye for him.

"You're quiet." Rook said stilling his knife to look at her. She shrugged but showed her white teeth in a large grin. Rook smiled back, "I saw a Wanderer today." He told the others as well as her. Rowan who had been making a fire and trying to find a scrap of deerskin to patch her boot looked back at him.

"Where at?" Lionel asked and glanced at Beau quickly. She sighed inwardly. Beau had left her people, the Wanderers, long ago. Wanderers were considered one of the lowest classes of society. They were believed to be murderers and kidnappers and thieves who only stole for themselves. She knew part of what they did was true but perhaps they were kinder to outsiders than they were to their own. Beau winced without meaning to as a memory surfaced again. Beau hated her people and would never go back.

"Walking near Fountain Dale." Rook said.

"Were you fishing there again?" Rowan asked shaking her head.

"It's a good spot." Rook replied and looked down continuing his work.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3, Own Nothing. Enjoy!**

The following day Beau had woken up much earlier than usual. She sat eating a few dried berries atop the hill watching the morning light filter through the trees. Rowan of course was already gone, as was Lionel but Rook and Etty still lay sleeping. Beau smiled and wondered if Lionel despite his distaste went running with Rowan.

Truthfully Lionel is the strongest out of the band but had always had a bit of baby fat left to him. Now his face had thinned out and the rest of him was all muscle. Really all of them had become more muscle than anything since becoming outlaws.

Beau sighed and looked down at her pale white skin. She was the smallest out of them, and the shortest but it didn't matter. Beau made up for her small frame with her spirit.

Deciding to walk around for a bit Beau left the rowan hollow and ventured in the direction of Fountain Dale, a holly-well on the outskirts of Sherwood Forest. The area was considered dangerous being close to the open fields between Sherwood and Nottingham, but often the outlaws hid and waited to pray upon rich merchants and tax collectors among other upper class society members for their money. Many a times Beau had found Robin Hood and a few of his men waiting amongst the trees for said persons to become close enough to rob of their purses, and as always they gave it back to the poor or bought and traded food to give to them.

Beau had grown up hearing these stories of Rowan's father. He was famous everywhere in England. Some believed him to be a myth, Beau had too before she met him. He was really the father of every little girl's dreams. Kind, handsome, brave, true of heart, nothing like Beau's own parents.

Beau stopped abruptly in her tracks when she heard voices coming nearer to her. Quickly she looked about for a hiding spot, there weren't many. _There! _Beau thought as she faced a tree that was easy enough to climb. She quickly jumped to grab a lower branch and heaved herself up until she was out of sight in the foliage. She looked in the direction the voices were coming from after she was sure she could not be viewed from the ground up.

Two men came into view dragging another with them. The third an outlaw who Beau had never met but by the looks of his choice of clothes she knew he was one of Robin's. A third man came from the opposite direction and met them.

"Name?" The third asked the outlaw.

"Rye Lancaster." The outlaw said glaring at the third man.

"Are you or are you not a member of Robin Hood's band?"

The outlaw didn't answer but Beau saw him set his jaw tight and glare up at the man. "Kill him, he's of no use."

"Is he not one of…?"

"He isn't one of the inner circle of Hood's men, and looks too old to be part of that little brat daughter of his band. Do as I say!" The third man said, clearly he was in charge of the other two. Beau had to bring her hand over her mouth to keep from gasping as the other two men ran the outlaw threw with their swords. She turned her head and clutched the tree.

"Leave him." The third said. The other two men dropped the outlaw to the ground and kicked him hard in the ribs. "Not worth the money."

Once the three men were completely out of sight Beau climbed down from the tree and ran to the outlaw on the ground. He was gasping for breath as blood came from his lips. Beau knew nothing of medicine or healing, it was Rowan's specialties. Instead she gave the shrill almost real whistle of a hawk to signal any outlaws nearby that she was in need of help.

The outlaw, Rye, looked up at her and reached for something in his shirt handing it with a shaky hand to Beau. She looked down at the bloodstained parchment that was folded around something and back to the outlaw. "What is it?" She said her voice coming out as her real one and not the fake one she had made up when joining the high Kings court. He tried to speak but couldn't soon after his eyes began to lose light and his breathing stopped.

Beau heard footsteps behind her and turned her head quickly to see Will Scarlet, and Little John, two of Robin's men that Beau knew very well. Will asked what had happened and Beau told them quickly but decided best to hide the paper the outlaw had given her.

"We should grab him, to bury properly, but the foresters may come back for him." Will said to John who nodded before bending to pick up the recently deceased man.

"Lass go back to the hollow. Why don't you tell the others to stay low when you see them." Will instructed her before he and John made their way back in the direction they came.

* * *

><p>"This happened this morning?" Rowan asked as she and the others stood inside the hollow.<p>

"Yes." Beau said with a sigh as she wrapped her thin arms around her shoulders. "I couldn't do anything but hide."

"It was best sense that that's all you did." Etty stated, "Do they know about all of us?" She asked turning towards Rowan but the question was open for the others to answer as well.

"How can they? Only a handful of them have seen you and Beau and Rook." Lionel answered, "They know who I am because of my father, and Rowan because of when the Sheriff Captured her, but you three look nothing like you did a few years ago." He explained.

"The outlaw he gave me something when he was dying." Beau said reaching in her boot were she had put the parchment. She handed it to Rowan who looked puzzled.

Rowan slowly opened the bloodstained paper to reveal a letter and what looked like a ring with a pattern on it.

"An insignia!" Etty stated taking the ring, "Where would an outlaw get this though? They are often worn by someone of power usually used when sealing a letter. They press the insignia into the wax allowing whomever the letter is directed to, to know that it came from the actual person writing it." She examined it further before passing it to Rook then the others. Rowan handed her the letter for Etty could read the best and in multiple languages out of the five. "It's…" She stopped speaking as she continued reading.

"What does it say?" Lionel asked.

"Shhh." She hushed him sticking a hand up. Etty turned the paper over to read the back side. Once finished she had a different expression on her face.

"So?" Lionel asked again making a hand gesture for her to hurry.

"There is a spy in Robin's camp…" Etty started, "Someone is feeding information to the Sheriff, that's how they know who everyone is now. That's how they know which outlaws are part of Robin's inner circle, and us."

"Was it the outlaw that got killed?" Rowan asked. Etty shook her head and spoke.  
>"I think he was being framed as the outlaw who is betraying your father." She looked at the insignia once more. "Whoever did it planted it on him and then made sure that those foresters had killed him. To take the target off his own back perhaps. He could've been the forester you said was giving the orders Beau. Did you see his face?"<p>

Beau shook her head, "No, I wasn't occupied with what faces looked like at the moment."

"We should get this to Robin." Rook stated breaking his silence. "Probably sooner than later."

"I'll take it to him tonight." Rowan said taking the letter and ring from the others before wrapping it back up. "Beau you said Will told us to lay low?"

"I think Robin told him to tell us." Beau said, "I don't think Robin wants us at his camp right now."

"Probably because of this." Rook said, "We all go, safety in numbers." The others agreed but Beau began to develop a feeling in her stomach. Something was very wrong in Sherwood.


	4. Chapter 4

**Own nothing, please review!**

Robin who was typically quite happy to see his daughter and her close friends looked aggravated that they had come. A group of his men, who knew the five well, and were Robin's closest, were sitting about a fire together the rest of the members of the band were lounging about all over the camp having conversations to themselves and eating. Some were practicing with weapons but others were sitting close with grave expressions on their faces talking away quietly. Tykell, the half wolf half dog that was a sort of pet of Rowan's was usually playful with the men but tonight stuck close to Rowan's side.

Robin had grabbed hold of Rowan's arm leading her and the others a little ways away from the rest of the outlaws. "Why are you here?" Robin said through clenched teeth.

"Good to see you too Father." Rowan said a hint of sarcasm in her voice, "We know that something's wrong." She said softly, "The outlaw who was killed handed Beau this." She said handing Robin the small package. "Etty already read it." She explained, "What's going on father?"

"Nothing to concern you." He said taking it from her before pocketing it. "It's best if you five stayed away for a little while Ro." Beau looked back and forth between the two of them as each spoke.

"Father please, I can handle myself well enough. Whoever it is would have some nerve to hurt one of us here in front of everyone else." She said crossing her arms. Beau had seen the two argue before often it was very funny both Robin and Rowan were very stubborn and bickered about the dumbest things. But this was different, serious this time.

"Rowan just do as I say." He said glancing back at his men. "I don't think you will come to physical harm but the less the spy knows the better."

"So it is someone who is newer?" Etty said quietly, "How many new members are there, that could narrow it down right?"

"It may not be but in case they have already gotten word to the Sheriff of the Oaks whereabouts…" He paused sighing, "Its best that you five aren't here if that has happened." Beau knew he was right, part of her at least. If the Sheriff and his guards and foresters found Robin Hood's favorite camp, while the outlaws were in it, it would be a massacre. She knew now that the Robin and his outlaws were playing a waiting game and so far they were losing.

"I've gotten better at a few of my…" Rowan was starting but Robin shushed her quickly.

"That's another thing that worries me." He was talking about Rowan's powers from her being part aelfin. Rowan's mother, Celandine, was a woods wife and half human, half immortal. She had capabilities and powers that made her feared by others and thought to be a witch. Celandine had been burned alive by four men on horseback going on six years ago. Rowan had been developing more of the woodsy magical abilities that her mother had had. She could sense her father and now her friend's presence if they were nearby, find springwater, heal, and now had the ability to make small protection spells and disguise spells as well as grow various plants within seconds if her powers were stronger.

"Father, most of your men know by now." Rowan stated, "Besides, what happens if someone gets hurt bad enough to need my attention?"

"Then we will pray and heal him like before." Before Rowan and the others had come to Sherwood he meant.

"And if it's you?" Rowan said furrowing her eyebrow. "What if it's lethal?"

"Then I will die. Enough of this, just stay alert of everything. Only come to me if something has happened Ro." He sighed relaxing his shoulders for a moment. Beau had not realized how taut and uptight he was till he had relaxed to normal. "I'll visit you at the hollow soon, just remain there or the caves nearby for now." Robin kissed Rowan's forehead before hugging her farewell.

* * *

><p>Once out of earshot from the Oak and on the way back to the hollow Rowan groaned loudly before declaring, "Toads take it! I swear my father has no sense sometimes! Is it not more dangerous for us to be at the hollow with less people and closer to Nottingham?" She threw her hands in the air.<p>

"I see his sense in it." Lionel said, "He knows for sure that whoever it is doesn't know where our camp is, or about your _abilities_. He or she, obviously only knows the basics."

"She?" Etty said, "Why do you think it's a she?"

"There were a few women in his camp! You didn't see them?" Lionel said, "Sitting amongst the others one practicing archery, they could just be a wife or a lady friend, maybe brothel…" Lionel rambled.

"I don't think Robin is the type of man to allow his men to entertain brothel girls Lionel." Etty stated rolling her perfect eyes. Beau was envious of the girl sometimes, she was after all a princess. Well a runaway princess. Her father had tried to marry her off to some older man when she was thirteen and she decided to bolt once in Sherwood Forest. That is how she met Rowan, Lionel, and Rook. Beau hadn't met her till later when her father came back to Sherwood to find her and had trapped Ettarde's mother in a cage.

"Are you lonely Lionel?" Beau said trying to lighten the mood even though her heart wasn't in the teasing mood. Instantly Lionel's face turned completely red as the others stopped and turned to him before laughing. Beau usually was the one to make the others laugh in times of annoyance, sorrow, or pain.

"Most certainly not!" He said looking between the four of them, "_Belle_, how can you say such a thing?" He knew that she hated being called that.

She had never told them why she had hated to be called that and had never wanted to get into it. Instead of telling him to stop she decided to drop it and look away.

"No arguing back? No ding dong?" Etty said looking at her. Beau looked at them and shrugged. The others looked concerned.

"Are you okay Beau?" Rook said, "It's not about today is it?"

"Beau you couldn't have done anything, it was right to stay hidden." Etty said touching the shorter girls shoulder.

"It's fine." Beau said shrugging her off, "Let's just get back home." She said faking a grin.


End file.
